What is ODB?
ODB (Observation DataBase) is a database developed at ECMWF to store and retrieve large volumes of meteorological observational and feedback data efficiently for use within the IFS.
Currently, ODB comes in two flavours:
- ODB-1 (the original hierarchical table format capable of running in a parallel environment within IFS)
ODB-2 (a new flat format with a modern API used for archiving in MARS).
Data from ODB can be extracted using the ODB/SQL query language, which is generally a small subset of SQL with some useful extensions.
The home of the ODB software can be found here.
How to use Metview with ODB?
Metview automatically recognizes both ODB-1 and ODB-2 formats and assigns the very same icon to them in the user interface:
The meta-data and data contents of an ODB can be inspected with the ODB Examiner, which can be either started up from user interface (right-click examine on the icon) or from the command line using the following command:
There are two more Metview icons associated with ODB: the ODB Filter icon
that can perform an ODB/SQL query resulting in a new ODB and the ODB Visualiser icon
with which ODB data can be visualised (and optionally filtered) in various plot types.
Resources
Tutorial
A main tutorial about using ODB in Metview can be found here.
Gallery
The Gallery features a few ODB-related examples showcasing both the ODB Filter and ODB Visualiser icons.
Script languages
Metview provides full support for ODB from its Macro and Python interfaces. The page below
 summarizes the available functions while the examples in the tutorials and the Gallery show the concrete implementations.